


The King's Feathers

by vensre



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Community: kinkme_merlin, Family Fluff, Multi, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 18:06:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14774547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vensre/pseuds/vensre
Summary: That's one way to stop somebody from falling to his death.Fluffy fill written in 2009 for the KMM prompt:Arthur/Merlin - Wing!fic! Please!





	The King's Feathers

It wasn't even an assassination attempt; the dragonet was just strong enough to be dangerous, overaffectionate, and not quite rational enough to catch a human once she'd playfully tossed him into the air. Merlin started to scramble to his feet, but knew he wouldn't make it across the wall-walk in time to keep Arthur's fall in his line of sight to direct it. 

" _Arthur ahreddaþ!_ " he cried, willing Arthur to float, punching his panic into the flow of magic and feeling it connect. He gasped in relief when Arthur roared his name from below, and moved to follow Lady Morgana down the spiral stairway as quickly as his shaky legs could carry him, leaving the young dragon cowering on the roof of the East Tower.

"Get off me, OW!" Merlin could hear Arthur's put-upon voice echoing through the courtyard windows.

Feeling steadier with evidence that Arthur wasn't worse than annoyed, Merlin barrelled down the last staircase, scarcely touching down as he skipped steps, and whipped around the archway into the courtyard. Arthur was on his feet, Morgana hovering at his shoulder with one enormous, speckled-tawny wing stretched out in her hands. Arthur jerked away from her, the wing flicking and folding behind him. Merlin opened his mouth, his mind working furiously to formulate an explanation. 

"Eheh," is what came out.

"I hate you," Arthur informed him.

"I didn't do it on purpose. It was one of those... non-specific... anyway, at least you didn't splat!"

"For god's sake, hurry up and get them off me," he hissed, jerking his head to indicate the clusters of people who had gathered at windows and by the gate, all of whom were definitely staring. Sir Bors had joined Morgana at Arthur's side, round-eyed, but he at least seemed less inclined to stroke the feathers.

"I don't—"

"I don't want to  _hear_  that you don't know how, figure it out now," he said, and it had the weight of a command. Arthur pulled his wing out of Morgana's grasp again and resettled them with a shrug, then turned and strode into the castle, his half-shredded cloak left behind on the ground.

Morgana threw Merlin a rare look of utter delight, calling, "Well done!" as she chased the King inside.

 

Merlin found them in the throne room, passing a few royal guards (and Sir Bors) who had been shooed out and were casting fascinated looks backward. He pushed the doors to, then paused to send out a soft pulse of family call to summon Gwen. Arthur and Morgana turned to focus on him; they had felt it too.

"Why are you calling Gwen?" Arthur asked with rather understandable post-scare gruffness.

Merlin didn't answer and tried to look as though he was pondering the deep mysteries of magic, a better option than explaining to Arthur that Gwen wouldn't forgive Merlin if he let her miss the spectacle.

"Don't you have a book or something you need to retrieve?" 

"I don't think there's anything in any of my books that'd help much with this. Sorry, shirt comes off. I'm pretty sure I can fix your jacket, though." Arthur didn't so much as blink when Merlin did away with his clothing above the waist with an instant's flash of gold. That at least was one spell he was thoroughly accustomed to.

Tilting his head thoughtfully, Merlin walked a circle around Arthur, who half-opened the wings helpfully to show Merlin how they were attached. They seemed to sprout from just above and inside each shoulder blade, well-supported by muscle and oddly organic for something unintended by nature. The tops of the wings were covered in smooth chestnut-coloured feathers, shading into stripes of copper and dark brown at the ends, the tips of the longest feathers edged in a light fawn colour. Underneath was paler, cream spotted with black and very soft-looking.

"How are you doing that?" said Merlin, watching the dark flight feathers spread out like fingers.

"What, you mean moving them around?" Arthur shrugged. "It feels natural."

"And they let you fly?"

"More or less. I didn't exactly land on my feet."

"But don't you want to try them, use them before they're gone?" Morgana said, the glint in her eyes making it quite clear that  _she_  would.

Arthur pulled a face. "I've no intention of getting used to them. I don't like to think about trying to fit these things into my bed."

Merlin's mind plunged into the gutter instantly, but he managed to contain himself and avoid Morgana's eyes as she said, "If you can't do it, no-one could. You have the biggest bed in this kingdom or the next."

"Definitely some sort of bird." Merlin said loudly, trying to distract himself. "They don't look anything like what the Sídhe have."

Arthur huffed. "If you've given me merlin wings," he said, sounding conflicted.

"They look more like a kestrel's," Morgana interrupted. "Don't be so cross, Arthur. They're beautiful."

Arthur extended one wing fully, then craned his neck to examine it and ended up turning in a complete circle in the attempt, like a dog discovering its own tail. Merlin very quietly clamped one hand over his mouth to keep from laughing out loud. He heard the doors grind shut behind him and Gwen joined them, her face radiant with awe and glee both.

"Did you just see..?" Merlin muttered to her, and she nodded, bright-eyed.

"Your Highness."

"Guinevere." Arthur eyed her, probably trying to work out whether she was about to laugh at him.

She made her usual polite curtsey, her eyes flicking from his face to one of the wings and back.

"Oh,  _all right_."

"Thank you!" Gwen's smile took over her whole face; she approached with arms outstretched, and rested her cheek against his wing as she smoothed her hands along the front edge, where the tiny soft feathers were. Watching, Merlin bit his lip, feeling left out. "What on earth happened?" Gwen enquired.

"There will be no more meeting, talking, or roughhousing with dragons on the top of the walls," Arthur said. "Even little ones. And Merlin is an  **idiot**."

"It kept you alive!"

"Great sorcerer that you're supposed to be, I'd think you could do that without the cost of my dignity."

"What dignity?"

"If you don't invite Merlin do that"—Morgana pointed at Gwen, who was blatantly cuddling Arthur's wing—"pretty soon, he's going to find a way to do it anyway in the name of research."

Arthur cut a look sideways at Merlin, one corner of his mouth twitching up, then laughed and reached out to pull Merlin close and wrap the other wing around him like a living blanket.

 

"You three are all creepy," said Arthur. "I really don't see the appeal."

"As though you wouldn't do the same if it was Gwen, or Merlin," Morgana muttered, running her hands over the wing still curled around Merlin.

"The feathers are lovely, though. Beautiful and soft," Gwen spoke up, her voice warm, and Arthur's expression mellowed with a faint shine of contented pride until she added, "Anyone would want to make a pillow out of them."

Arthur threw his arms up, and shouted, "Oh, get off!" He extricated himself from his friends and flapped his wings hard a few times, one little tuft of down twirling away towards the ceiling.

"Now get these things off me, if you've all had enough of my  _feathers_."

"Actually," was all the warning Morgana gave before she did something that made Arthur recoil with a yell. He then turned abruptly and smacked Merlin on the back of the head.

"What the fuck, Arthur!"

"If you'd had a  _contingency plan_ , she wouldn't have the chance to do things like that!" Scowling his disgust, Arthur was holding his wings arched up like a bird uncertain of its perch, as far away from Morgana as he could make them go without actually going aloft. 

She held up a small handful of plumes triumphantly, dotted with blood at the quill tips. "It would only have felt worse if I'd warned you," she said, smirking. "Anyway, they're for Gwen. Souvenirs."

Gwen shook her head at Morgana, but accepted the feathers anyway. 

"I don't care if you won't strike a woman. Be more polite to your warlock," Merlin said darkly. "I'm the one that has to fix you."

"Go on, get back," Arthur waved his arms at Morgana and Gwen, who traded an amused look. "Experimental magic time."

"Oh  _is it_."

Merlin frowned fiercely at Arthur as he drew closer, but didn't pull away when he set his hands on Merlin's shoulders and bent his head to speak into his ear. "Merlin," the King said softly.

"Mm?" Merlin could have sworn he meant to say something with actual words.

"Thank you," Arthur breathed.

"Okay," Merlin whispered, his heart squeezing itself into the very top of his chest. "Yeah."

 

" _Afeorsie_ , um,  _afeorsaþ_ ," he incanted, getting the feel of the spell.

"Ah, stop," Arthur gasped, "fucking hurts," which was alarming considering the injuries Merlin had seen Arthur endure with no more than a frown.

"Sorry, sorry — you all right?" Merlin rubbed at Arthur's shoulders and around the base of the wings until the muscles there seemed to uncramp. "I guess just removing them isn't... yeah."

"They're  _attached_."

"I know, sorry. I really don't think these are coming off," Merlin mused, putting his arms around Arthur's waist below the wings, setting his chin on one shoulder as Arthur sighed. "Hm. But there might be something else I can do about them."

"Go ahead," Arthur said quietly.

Merlin stepped back into the balanced stance he used for more powerful spells, and glanced sidelong at Morgana and Gwen, who were sitting on the curved edge of the great table, arm in arm. He'd become a bit self-conscious about stretching out his hand to guide the magic, since Gwen seemed to find the motion rather absurd. Sure enough, the corner of her mouth worked itself into a squiggle shape that likely meant she thought she was being very nice by not laughing at him. He made a face at her and turned back to Arthur, concentrating.

" _Ætlútie... hýdst æt nearoþearf yppan_ ," Merlin said, intent on his memory of Arthur's back, the shape and tone and familiar smooth skin. At once the magic reached out to shroud the wings, concealing them in pockets of elsewhere until even the new muscles running up through Arthur's shoulders hid themselves away, leaving him looking as he had that morning.

Arthur turned around and gave Merlin a wide, relieved smile, flexing his shoulders. "That was better."

"I'm glad you think so. Technically, you still have the wings."

"Really? I can't feel any trace."

"They're still part of you, but I put them away. Like tucking them into a pocket. The thing about that is, if you ever need them — direly need them, like falling off a cliff or something — they're going to appear again. If you don't, they won't, but if they come out you'll need magic to put them away again, or you'll be stuck with them. And won't that be embarrassing."

"It really, really would be," said Arthur agreeably. "Better keep you around, then."

"You'd best. I suppose you'll want a shirt."

"That would be preferable."

"Says you," Merlin said, but absently summoned one out of Arthur's wardrobe and handed it over, then wandered back to Gwen and Morgana. Morgana had one of Arthur's feathers stuck into her hair like a flower.

"We could lure her down with a mutton leg," Gwen was saying.

"Or we could get another dragon not quite so silly to reason with her, if she won't respond to us? She likely thinks we're angry with her."

"I don't think they really do reason," Merlin put in, and they both looked up. "None of the dragons I've talked to ever made much sense."

"A little like you, then?" Morgana slid gracefully down from the table, her eyes fixed on Arthur, who was now dealing with several abashed-looking courtiers and a couple of knights who had toppled into the room when there got to be too many people trying to spy through the crack between the double doors. She started across the room toward the crowd, who cringed as one at her approach.

Merlin offered his hands to Gwen, who took them as she hopped down. When she let go, he still held one hand out, and grinned at her expectantly until she laughed and dropped one curving, copper-coloured feather into his palm.

**Author's Note:**

>  _hýdst æt nearoþearf yppan_ = hide until dire need reveal


End file.
